


paving the way

by comewithmennow90



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), Robin: Son of Batman (Comics), Teen Titans - All Media Types, Young Justice - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-09-28 00:42:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10059722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comewithmennow90/pseuds/comewithmennow90
Summary: As a young boy, Damian saw robin go against his grandfather & that in turn gave him the courage to pave his in path in life. he ran away when he was 8 and took Goliath with him. on the way he recruited Maya & Suren, but now Damian's grandfather is after them, so he is forced to look for his hero, robin. along the way he meets his father and joins a family he & they were ready for.





	1. Chapter 1

A small figure paced the long luxuries hallways that housed the elites of league of assassins. The small figure quietly made its way down to the main chamber room that usually was occupied by Ra’s al ghul, who was the figures grandfather. The figure wanted to go a peek to see what his grandfather was up to since all of his lessons were cancelled on his orders. He was meant to be taken to one of the safe rooms until further notice, but he managed to have slipped away from his guards and make his way down the empty hallways. 

He got to the to the doors that lead to the main chamber and pulled the door as slowly as he could. Peeking through the slim crack he saw his grandfather’s back facing his in the distance. He was worried that he might have been seen, but his grandfather's attention was solely focused on the figure in red that was facing him. The figure was shorter than his grandfather, and it wore bright red and black, but with yellow cape that seemed to flow like water. They were talking and i could barely hear them , but they were arguing. 

No one dared argue with his grandfather, well other than his own mother, but to see someone fighting his grandfather was something to balk at. The older boy was indeed fighting him, and they were getting more vocal as they went. Taking a step back, i could see that grandfather was reaching for the sword he had at his hip. The fight was about to end and grandfather would walk away covered in the insolents boys blood. Nothing that wasn't unusual. Anyone that dared to defy grandfather always wound up dead, or at least nocking of on death's door. 

I wasn't about to turn away from the scene, already figuring that it would be the same as always when grandfather struck down on his opponent, but instead of the usual scream of pain that came with grandfathers attacks, it was met with the sound of steel meeting steel. I quickly turned back and saw that the boy was fending off grandfathers attacks. He was able to match grandfathers strength!

I peeked a bit more and saw that he was saying something else to grandfather that cause him to growl a bit and then parry his attack. Grandfather jumped back, but he was attacking again almost instantly. The boy though, he was meeting all of his attacks and even delivering some of his own. He was fighting grandfather as a equal. Something i've only heard about through the hushed whispers of the servants. It was amazing. This boy was fighting the most dangerous man alive and he could actually beat him! How was it even possible? 

A rush of excitement and dread came through the young boy. He wanted to see more, but he didn't want to risk being caught, so he settled for watching this young boy fight his grandfather through the crack in the door. 

His grandfather gave one last perry and when it was blocked again, he leaped back. He spoke to the boy in a tone that he often praised him in. usually he would have been angry with it, but he felt that it was right to speak to the boy that had managed to outdo his grandfather. He, himself, wanted to meet with the boy to tell him how impressed he was. He wanted to tell him, how amazed that he even existed.  
The two fighters exchanged a few words, before the boy raised his staff up and proclaimed that he had won the fight already. It was the only words he was able to hear through the whole violent exchanged, but the words resonated in him. This boy had the gall to say he had bested his grandfather. 

That wasn't possible, but the way he was so confident, it gave the boy some hope. Hope to go against what he was taught. He could go against what his family had told him. Everything he didn't like, maybe he could do something else. He could go against his grandfather too. He could do what he wanted. He could live a life his grandfather didn't want for him. He could live his own life.

The boy was so enraptured with the other boy. He needed to learn who he was. 

His grandfather scoffed at the boy and shielded his sword. He shook his head and turned towards the chambers windows. He said some words and the boy gave him a cocky smirk. Grandfather didn't bother turning to face the boy, but he was only a few inches away from facing me, so i backed away from the door. I wanted to know what happened next, but i needed to get away soon. Grandfather couldn't know that i had seen that. He would be angry with him. 

The boy backed away from the door, leaving the fate of the boy in red and yellow unknown for now, but he had a sneaking suspicion that he'd be seeing him again, but for now, he’d need to stay complacent. For now atleast. 

The boy made his way back to the bunker that his tutors were hiding in and merged back into the crowd. His presence not even noticed. When the all clear was given, his tutor finally noticed him again and instructed him that they would be ending the lesson for the day. Which he was grateful for. He didn't feel like faking interest in his lessons when his mind was still being occupied with the thought of the boy in red and yellow. And the thought that maybe he could go against his grandfather's plans for him.


	2. Chapter 2

I loved this feeling. It felt like i was the one flying, with the wind running through my hair, and the chill of being so high up in the sky that always seemed so inviting. The clear blue, with white puffs of clouds.Letting go of the stark red fur that had become part of my home and my best friend I sat up on my knees and let the wind whipped past me. Spreading my arms wide, feeling like i had wings, the loose sleeves flapping with the wind. Adding to the feeling. 

Taking a deep breathe in, i filled my lungs to capacity. Holding it in for a moment before releasing it. 

I looked in front of me and saw the incoming land masses zooming towards me. We were making great time. I smiled and dropped my arms. Enjoying the view. I looked to my right side when a soft hand touched my shoulder. I looked over and saw my first human friend, maya. She was looking at me questionably. 

“What?”

“What do you think we should do?” She asked me. She was worried. We had been hunted down by the league ever since we had taken in Suren. Sure we had our run ins, but for the most part we had managed to slip by them, but now, they were targeting us. Hunting the son of the dragon. Granted we all were on their watch list, suren had awoke by accident, and had immediately tried to destroy the world. It was not a good day for anyone, but i had managed to hunt him down with Maya and together we brought him to our side. 

We had to go against the league and now we were on their hit list, or at least capture list. Grandfather was sure to be pissed at me, and mother, whoooo yeee. She was so angry at me. She straight up told me that i was a disappointment, pretty sure that was suppose to hurt. It did, but i'm kinda happy too. I want to be free to do what i want, and if that makes me a disappointment, then so be it. I've made more friends and i've learned more by traveling than i did being kept away and training. 

“Hmmmm, well, we could keep traveling and avoid them. We've done a pretty good job at in before.”

“But now they seem like they are actually going after us. We need to come up with a plan. something more than us keeping a step ahead of them, Damian. We need to do something. We can't keep moving forever.” Maya stressed to me. She was really worried about this. I suppose i should be too. If i had to go back to the league well then, i think grandfather might actually sacrifice me and use me as his new host. I shivered at the thought. I got away fromt the, because of i didn't want to be a puppet. Now it was a literal chance i might become one. 

“What can we do?” Suren sat up. He was lying down, watching the sky move above us. 

“Not much we can do. We will always have to be a step ahead of them.”

“Well, Damian, i remembered something you told me.” 

“And what was that?”

“Wasn't there someone who beat your grandfather?” i cringed at the thought.

“Yeah, Robin.”

“Can't we ask him how to beat the league?” 

“That would work,” i said after a moment.

“Then why don't we?” Suren asked, oh boy. I was gonna have to explain. I cringed at myself internally. I did not want them to know. How embarrassed i was at myself. 

“Because….. I'm like, not ready, to see him…?” 

“What?” Suren looked at me.

I rolled my shoulders and tried to keep the bubble that was threatening to explode down. 

“Immmmmm….kindaaaaa. .. not cool when it comes to him.”

“Damian? What do you mean?” Maya asked me as she smirked at me. She knew, but up till this point she was cool with me. She didn't try to embarrass me like this. 

“Damn it! Fuck you guys! I can't handle the idea, there's no way i could handle actually meeting him!” i yelled out my frustration. 

“Hehehehe, suren dont worry. Damian is just a fan boy.” Suren seemed shocked by my out burst, but maya had seen me when we got so close to the young justice team that one time in peru. Robin wasn't even a mile away from us, but i still made us hide cause i couldn't handle him seeing me like that. I just got so excited that i started to hyperventilate. Maya thought i was having a panic attack, but i was just too excited to breathe. And i didn't want to guy to see me like that so i hid us. 

Maya went along with it at the time and i had to explain to her, that until i could handle myself, i don't want to meet him, but now it seems like she isn't giving much of a choice. Nooooooo.

“I resent that, but yeah, maybe we can go and see if he has any ideas? But one of you guys have to do the talking. I can't. Like i don't think i could even get the words out.” i was getting excited again. Breathing was getting hard. Needed to calm down.   
“Ok, we can do that. Right Suren. We can help Damian here keep his dark secret around his boy crush.”

“Boy crush?” suren asked.

“Not too worry about that. Damian is still too young to know about the magic of love~, but old enough to have a borderline obsession with superheroes.” 

“Please don't ever call it that again.”

“Borderline obsession or Boy crush?”

“Uhhh, both? Just please once we find them, just keep it chill. Like do most of the talking, and help me seem like i got my shit together.” i begged her. 

“And i will do everything in my power to make sure you look like you're a abomination!” 

“Nice suren, but you're the abomination.”

“Says the boy born from a man bat.”

“Can we please not bring that up?”

“Whatever son of demon. Your mother just has odd taste if she chose to mate with one of those man made monstrosities.” suren’s words were biting, and i felt a bit hurt at them, but he wasn't wrong. Mom had weird taste in men i suppose. Grandfather never really permitted the mention of it, so it must have been embarrassing for him to admit that his daughter would….ummmm….be with one of those things. Well regardless, i was happy that i at least looked normal. I didn't sleep from hanging from the ceiling nor did i have leathered wings. Although, that does sound cool now. 

“Oh quiet suren. You have claw like hands and your demeanor sucks.” Maya defended me. 

“Whatever. How do we meet this bird?” 

“Hmmmm, damian, any ideas?”

“Uhhhh, well he's part of a team now. The titans.”

“Cool, glad to know your boy crush payed off. Still able stalk someone miles away.” maya was back to teasing me. I groaned and threw myself backwards, onto Goliath back, who gave a sound of discomfort from my active movements while he was soaring through the skies.

“So you know where he is?”

“Not exactly. I know what he does, but tracking the team is rather hard.” Maya hummed at me and pulled out her phone. She tapped on it, before blurting out a laugh. Suren and i both leaned forward to see her phone.

“Yeah, this is not hard at all. They live in a literal tower in the shape of a T!” i squinted my eyes and looked at the picture on her phone. It was indeed a ‘T’ Shaped building, but it must have been a cover. There was no way someone as smart as Robin would live there. It was way to obvious. 

“Yeah, i dont think thats it.” i said. Maya just kept on giggling.

“It is the best we have at the moment. We should go there and hopefully if it is a decoy base than we can gain their attention.” Suren dictated. 

“Yeah, it's a good starting point we can start there and hopefully we can get in contact with robin.” i said, laying down on my back again. We had been traveling across the borders of southern america, avoiding the league and returning the random artifacts grandfather had stolen from over the world. Maya had started to do it not long after running into each other. She was actually sent by her father to befriend me and bring me to him, but her father was forced underground by the justice league, so she was on her own for the time being. I offered her to come with me on my grand adventure of life and she agreed to only hang around till the heat blew over and now she's my sister. It was nice having her company, i mean Goliath was great to have around, especially since he had his growth spurt and was able to let me fly with him, rather than when we had first ran away and i had him in a bag on my back. 

“So it decided, we are going to jump city! Finally! Civilization with indoor plumbing!” Maya yelled out and i smirked at her. She looked at me and smacked me. 

“Fine, let's just adjust cause right now, Goliath is heading to Russia.”

“God no, please, no where cold.” Maya whined.

“Whats Russia?” surren asked.


	3. 2

We were heading to jump city and I could feel the butterflies in my stomach. Goliath was flying steady and the pace we were making was impressive, but it felt like it was going fast. I was planning to become stronger and get a better reputation before tracking down robin. I wanted him to think I was strong and cool, but with Suren with us, I had to speed up my plans. Suren might have not been with us for long, but I had already started to feel like was a brother to me. Like how Maya became an older sister to me as well. It felt good to have friends, but the love I held for them was stronger than the love I held for my mother. I loved her, but it doesn’t feel like she loved me. She would always go on about how I would one day take over the league and guide the world into a utopia. That sounds like a lot of responsibility. I don’t want that. Even if grandfather didn’t try to take over my body, I would have still run, just to avoid doing that. Too much of an expectation for my taste.

“IS that it?” Maya asked as we went came up on a large land base.

“That the city, but we have to find the building that they are supposed to be at.” I explained.

“Is that it?” Suren asked as he pointed down to a sky scraper.

“No, it a ‘T’ shape, Suren.”

“How about that?”

“No, “T” Suren.”

“How bout that?”

“Suren!”T”, on an island. “

“Oh an island, I see.”

“Yes, an island.”

“Is that it?” He asked again, but this time pointing down to a small island off the coast we were passing. I smacked my head in exasperation.

“No Suren, a building that is the shape of a ‘T’.”

“A Tee. Hmmmm.” he thought about it.

“What’s a tee?” I wanted to smash my head.

“Jees, Suren -”

“There it is!” Maya interrupted me. I looked at where she excitedly pointed to and saw the giant ‘T’ shaped building that no doubt only warriors would live. It gleamed in the distance where the setting sun hit. The orange glow, combined with the Ocean's waters surrounding it made it seem like it was some holy ground. A bubble of excitement started to build its way from my stomach to my throat. I wanted to scream in excitement, but suppressed it. I needed to get into character if I was going to try impressing robin with my ‘prince of the League of Assassins that struck out on his own’ persona.

I cooled my face into an unreadable mask as we entered their permit titer. They should be aware of our presence at this point. I took Goliath's reins from Suren and started to guide us offshore. Goliath hovered for us to jump down and once we were all off his back he landed beside us. The sand smooched under our feet. Goliath spread his toes in the wet sand, making its cover his large claws. I would want to do that too, but I wanted to keep my composer, beside there will be time later for us to play on a beach. For now, assassins looking for advice on how to take down a baddie they fought before. Ok, ok, I got this. I got this.

It wasn’t long when I heard the sound of pounding feet and battle cries as the team assembled before us. In front of the warriors was him. Robin. Wearing the same red and yellow spandex that I had last seen him in. He was taller though, from what I remembered. Of course it had been a few years since I had seen him in person. I’m sure I had grown as well, but there was no way for him to know that. I wanted him to be impressed, but that was not going to happen now. I needed to make it seem like I was tough and a steady soldier.

“State your business” Robin ordered. I opened my mouth to answer, but Suren beat me to it.

“Wait do you guys actually stay here? We were just hoping w would get your attention if we came here like this.” The team shared a look.

“Shut up Suren. Sorry he’s knew too well being alive. How bout we just introduce ourselves and we will tell you all about why we are here.” Maya placated.

“Start.”

“Ok. Well my name is Maya Ducard. I’m a Nobody, but been kind of freelancing with these two here.” Maya finished and motioned for me or Suren to start our introduction. When neither of us started she went ahead.

“And this one here,” She pointed to Suren, “is Suren Darga. He is some kind of resurrected prince from some kind of world destroying cult from like the 13th century.”

“That is not true! It was not a cult. We were royalty!” Suren protested.

“And this over here,” she ignored Surens rant,” Is Damian Al ghul. Son of Talia al ghul and grandson of Rhas Al ghul. Used to be in line to inherit the whole thing.” Maya finished.

“That’s only like half the story. Seriously, if you plan on trying to introduce us, might as well give them a better version of the story.”

“I didn’t see you offering up anything.” Maya defended.

“Ok, Ok. I get it. You three are all from our enemy list, “Robin said, obviously annoyed with our arguing, “but that doesn’t tell us why you are here in particular.”

I stepped up to answer for us. “We need your help. My grandfather has upped his tactics in trying to capture us and you are the only one I know that has managed to defeat him and make him be leery of your presence.” Robin seemed to legit ally surprised. His eyes behind the domino mask widen and his posture was no longer stiff and ready to jump to attack, but it had loosened from shock.

“You guys came here because you need help getting away from Rhas?”

“Yeah, so can we like talk? Because we don’t know how long we have till he manages to catch up to us. We lost him in Romania, but like I said he has been coming at us a bit more enthusiastically.”

Robin took a moment to think it over, before making the sign for his team to stand down.  
“Ok, you can come in and we will decide what to do, but what are you planning to do with your….umm... Ride?”

“That goliath. Goliath! Go get some lunch. We might be a while.” I ordered Goliath to get himself something to eat. He looked up at me and then flew away. Towards the ocean to go fishing.

“Uhhh, ok. Let’s go.” We followed Robin and his team back to the tower. I really wanted to know why though. Why a giant ‘T’?

“So are you going to tell us why the giant ‘T’?” Suruen asked again.

“We are the Teen Titans! So it’s a ‘T’!” the Green boy I saw answered. I remember reading his file once. His code name was beast boy. Real name was Garfield.

“Doesn’t this place get attacked constantly?” I asked.

“Well yes and no. most think we don’t actually live here.”

“That brilliantly stupid.” I said. Ahead robin opened the door for us and ushered us all in.

“It works though.” the speedster answered.

“Well they are alive so don’t knock it.” Maya put in.

We were quiet till we reached some sort of sitting area.

“Ok, you sit down and then you will tell us the whole story.”

The others sat down and I found a spot on the other side of Maya as Suren took the couch's arm. Robin sat across directly from me. He was staring intensely at me. On the inside I was self conscious about why. Did he not trust me because of my connection of my grandfather? Well of course he would be. I hadn’t really done much too really prove to him I’m not like Grandfather.

His team also chose a place to sit and listen to us.

“Ok, start from the beginning. How do you know about me?”

Maya and Suren looked over to me. I sighed and took a breather to start talking.

“It started years ago. You had for some reason decided to come to our compound to confront him. I was just a child then and had snuck away from my caretakers to see what exactly was transpiring. When I had reached my grandfathers foyer I had seen you fighting him. And I saw you survive and actually land a few hits on him as well. That how I know, you can help me. You’ve fought him before and I need to know how you managed to keep him from taking you.”

“What do mean by ‘taking me’?” robin asked.

“Grandfather doesn’t let anyone go. You defied him. And got away. How?” Robin seemed stumped.

“To be honest Damian, it’s probably because of the people I’m always with.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well I was trained by the Batman and I am always surrounded by the Titans or the justice league. It is irresponsible for him to attack while I’m here.”

“Yes, but how did you get him to stop hunting you?”

“I didn’t do anything special.”

“That can’t be. He see’s you as an equal.”

“Damian, I know this must be frustrating, but that all. I’m with the right people that keep me safe from his influence.” I huffed at his response. I was expecting some great advice from him. I mean he is ROBIN. Robin’s are supposed to be free and does what they feel is right and stand against others.

“Don’t be angry. It wasn’t planned.” Robin tried to make me feel better, but I was just going to be in a mood. He was supposed to have the answer in how to break free of my family.

“Don’t worry about him. He just realized that his hero isn’t a god.” Maya smoothed robin’s guilt.

“What?” Robin asked, a smile threatening to break across his face, but had managed to leak through his voice.

“Shut up Maya.” I growled out. I still wanted to be cool for him.

“You are Damian’s ‘Boy crush’; Maya explained to me that it’s ok for him to like you.” Suren you jackass.

“Suren, you are going to die a horrible death.” I muttered to him. He stiffened, but Robin’s flabbergasted face made me pause.

“Not in that way. Please, I barely like humans.” I tried to cover, but he just used his hand to cover his face. He must be laughing at me. In retaliation of one of the most humiliating moments of my life, I leaped over Maya and tackled Suren to the ground. I landed on top of him with a scream and he started to thrash against me.

“You going to die a second time Draga!” I screamed as I began to choke him. Maya turned to us and yelled for me stop being over dramatic. While the Titans came rushing to us and tried to pry me off of Suren, but I wasn’t letting go. Not till I had his life in my hands.

“I brought you into this world, and I can take you out!!” I yelled as I was finally pried off of him and dragged to the other side of the room.

“Ok! Everyone calm down!” Robin yelled at us. I ‘Tt’ at him before letting myself become limp. The speedster let me drop from where he was holding onto me for life. Suren sat up a little less for wear, but still smirking at me. I will have his life by tonight, I vowed silently.

“Good, now no more attacking each other. Damian, I will contact batman about this, but I would like to run some tests’ first. Just to make sure that there isn’t anything wrong with any of you. You had all of your shots, right?” Robin tried to joke, but I was still in my murdering mood.

“What’s a shot? You wish to put Damian down?” Suren asked. Robin and I sighed at the same time, while Maya just scratched her head.  
Robin led us all to this med bay that was down another hallway. There he took swabs and some blood from each of us. When he found out that I hadn’t had any shot since I was 8 and abandoned the league he freaked out a bit. Muttering about how it was dangerous for me to be to places that I was. When he found out that Suren was being serious about not knowing what a shot was, I swear I could hear him screaming inside of his head.

Once we were done there, he gave us a temporary room for the night till he managed to get batman and inform him of the situation here. When Maya had realized that her room came with a shower with working hot water she literally hugged him, but had to immediately apologize for the dirt she left on him. As soon as he left us though, she took an hour shower. I and Suren sat down by the window so I could ‘educate’ him on how humans work in this day and age. When Maya came out to see that we hadn’t yet gone to our own room to shower, she huffed and stomped towards us. Grabbing both of us by the backed our collar she dragged us towards the bathroom. I let her do it for a while till we both were seated by the tub. She turned it on and went to take off our shirts. I freaked and screamed. I dashed out of the room with my shirt still disheveled from where she had tried to pry it off my body; suren’s screams were still going as I ran out of her room. I ran straight into the green boy though. We collapsed into a pile of twisted limbs.

“Get off man! You stink!” Beast boy complained as I tried to pry my leg out of the twisted mess.  
“What’s going on in there? Sounds like she’s killing him!?!”

“She is trying to force us to bathe.”

“She might have to. Jesus you do stink.”

“Damian!!” Suren screamed as Maya laughed maniacally. The sound of water splashing resounding the hall way.

“What is going on out here?” the speedster asked as he came down from the opposite side of the hall way.

“Maya, is giving the boys a bath.” Beast Boy answered.

“She has to force you guys to bathe?” The speedster asked again. I really need to ask his name.

“She doesn’t have to force us. We would have done it, but she wished to force it now.” I answered. The two didn’t seem to believe me.

“Yeah, well why you don’t just go do it now. Before she gets her hands on you. Sounds like Suren in there are dying and she is enjoying killing him.” The speedster said.

“Unless you wish to go back in there.”

“No, I will retire to my room for now. I rather not have her bathe me.”

“Smart choice kid.” The speedster chuckled out.

I sped walk to my room, escaping Suren’s screams. Once I closed my door I leaned against it. It was a relief to be free for now. To finally be able to sleep for a full night. First though, I need to the bathe before Maya gets to me.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tim

Domain’s appearance was a shock. I had almost fallen down when I saw his face outside. He was the spitting image of Bruce. The fact that he was the child of Talia was just the final kicker for me to fully expect for him to be Bruce’s son. I knew that Bruce and Talia had some sort of affair years ago, and the fact that he hadn’t heard from her for years just dug the hole deeper.

That why I had told them I needed to do some tests’ on all of them. It just so happened that they all did need to get their yearly shots done. I almost had a heart attack with the Suren boy, but I suppose that if he was from centuries ago, like they said. It shouldn’t be a surprise.  
I took blood and a swab from Damian to run a parental DNA test against Bruce. It was still going but should be done any minute. I was holding off on contacting Bruce till I knew for sure what was going on. Regardless if he was Bruce’s kid, this was an opportunity of a lifetime. This boy here was a direct heir to Rhas. Someone who knew more information in his short 10 years of life than what we gathered for 20 years of investigation. And the fact the he came with a nobody assassin was amazing. The child of Ducard. Another ally in the world against the underground crime.

It was crazy though when I thought about it. Damian had known about me for years. He idolized me for something stupid I did for years. It’s what made him make his own decisions, but now he had to deal with his grandfather trying to reclaim him. The is something that only batman can really handle. I was lucky. I got out and was immediately around others that stood against Rhas, but he, he got out and had to find his own team. He doesn’t realize that he was doing something I couldn’t have done for as half as long as he had.

Ding!

That was the test results. I got up and walked over to the screen. Reading the results and felt an oncoming smirk. I put in the call to Batman. It rang once before it was answered.

“Robin, what is it?”

“Congratulations Batman. It's a boy.”


	4. 3

I bathed and was sitting in my room, I wasn’t particularly tired, but I did enjoy the bed. When I had first come out of the shower I had crawled under the covers to cocoon myself in. I laid there for a while till I got tired of that. I was filled with some sort of energy. Probably leftovers from the day. I hadn’t heard anything from Suren or Maya for a while, but I figured they were tired enough from the bath that they both chose to go to sleep. I stood up from the bed and walked around. Garfield had lent me some of his clothes for the night, all of the mine were dirty so he gave me his. Garfield was a bit taller than me, so they hung off of me. They were still comfortable.

I sighed and walked around the room some more. It was a small room, but cozy. We had spent most of the past few months sleeping outside. We would camp under the stars and sometimes it was uncomfortable, but we always would huddle together to stay warm. I suppose that was why I couldn’t fall asleep. We would always be right next to each other when we would go to sleep, and granted sometimes Suren’s snore got too loud; I still like to know where they were. I sighed and looked out the window. I needed to get to sleep.

 

We were up early and ready for the next move. Robin was awake with us too, which was odd to us. We were used to waking up at the crack of dawn, because we needed to move on, but Robin was awake, in the kitchen making coffee. I had snuck out of my room to try and sneak out and meet with Goliath and see how his night was. Mine was restless. I had issues sleeping in general, but now that I was separated from my friends, it was worse. I didn’t have back up right next to me incase anything happened. Although, logically I knew that the chances of me being attacked was so little that it was almost none. I was surrounded by heroes’ that have gone against things that would make my grandfather pause, but the new environment made me more on edge. Hopefully tonight I could get Suren to at least stay in my room for some time. Maybe more time together in this environment would put me at ease.

I rounded the corner, by passing the kitchen and seeing that robin was out of costume and brewing coffee. I knew what he actually looked like and that he was from the Drake’s family, but I never really saw him as that. It was an odd sight. I hid in the corner of the frame and watched him as he went about his morning routine.

“Damian. What are you doing?” Maya whispered to me. I jumped and turned to her. I saw that she and Suren had snuck up on me.

“Nothing.”

“Mmmhmmm. Yeah right.” I rolled my eyes at her and went to take a step away from the kitchen, but was stopped by a voice coming from the kitchen.

“You three in for breakfast?” we all jumped, we had assumed he didn’t hear us, but we must have louder than we thought. We all filed into the kitchen; looking like we all got caught. Well except for Maya. She just pranced in.

“I was hoping to check in on Goliath before everyone else woke up.”

“Well hold off on that, I wanted to talk to you three.”Uh oh.

“Don’t give me that look. Nothing bad. I just wanted to tell you I've contacted by batman and the justice league. They are coming here later to talk and see what to do.”

“What do you think they might want us to do?” Maya asked as she opened the fridge to help herself. Robin walked around her to the counter and leaned over it to reach his laptop.

“They probably would want to place you each in some kind of training program and hide you out somewhere more secure till Rhas’ is taken care of.”

“How do they plan to do that?”

“Well, they will have to test you guys to see who gets mentored by.”

“So, are we expected to stay here with you guys.” robin looked at me. It wasn’t that I didn’t like them, but what if we wanted to go back to exploring the world? What if we just wanted to leave after this? I mean we were just planning on visiting Robin and then going. We had no real plan to stay with them; it was just to meet them and establish that we were a friendly and maybe get some information about how to approach the situation, but nothing more.

I looked over the Suren and Maya. Suren was looking at me, I don’t think he really cares on what we are doing at this point, he had plan after his whole destroying the world thing failed so he’s been winging it with us, but Maya didn’t seem to like the idea of us having to stay here to be trained. Like me, she craved freedom, and handing that over to them, just because we didn’t want to fight my grandfather, it wasn’t an even trade.

“You guys will have a say in what happens. We just want to make sure that you guys are safe and have the opportunities to actually live, rather than be stuck being on the run.” Tim quickly added once he saw our collective hesitation.

“So will we be separated or something, cause we don’t do that.” Maya finally spoke up, taking on her role of older sister. Placing he hand on her hip she was image of ‘don’t mess with my family’.

“Uhhhh, we will have to see to that, honestly, hehehe.” Tim rubbed the back of his head. Maya gave him a stern look and took a step towards us. “Wait, it’s just that, I can’t promise you anything. I mean when the big honchos get here, I’m sure they will be willing to work with you, but top priority is to make sure that each of you gets somewhere safe and where you can be taught how to defend yourself against threats like Rhas.”

“We will see about that, but we need to stay together, if we aren’t, then deals off. We walk out and figure something out. We came here just for advice; we didn’t want to join any hero club.” Maya said as she went behind us, grabbing both of our shoulders in the process.

Tim looked worried now, he stood up straighter and his coffee was now on the counter. His eyes were squinted and his mind was going a million miles a second on how to approach this situation. Eventually he did respond to us, he shrugged his shoulders and lifted his mug back up to his lips.

“Do what you have to. We aren’t going to force you to do anything.” he shrugged and turned from us. We exited out and went outside to the shore where I called for Goliath.

“What should we do?” Suren asked us as we watched the water start to come to the shore.

“They can still help us, and it’s no guaranteed that they will separate us, and even if they did, it wouldn’t be forever.” Maya said as she petted Goliath. I stood beside her.

“Yeah, but I don’t know. I mean, we don’t know them, and they have done some shifty things in the past. We can’t just go handing out our freedom to anyone.”

“Damian’s right about that. We are independent right now. We don’t belong to no one.” Maya said forcefully.

“So, what does that leave us?”

“Same as before. We don't know.”

“We should just wait for the grownups to come and see what they have to say. Worse comes to worse we say ‘no thank you.’ and be on our way.”

“Let’s hope it’s that simple.” I said petting Goliath. I kind of wanted to tell them that it might be for the best if we just leave now. To mount Goliath and go back to the farthest corners of the planet and continue to live the life we were living. We were doing good things over there. We would fight together, saving small villages and just going about our lives. I met my hero and granted he wasn't the godly level I kind of put him up to be, but it was normal I think. There was no way this was an easy answer.

“Yeah, let’s hope.”

TIM POV.

Tim sat at his desk inside of his room watching the security footage of Damian and his teammates talk next to the shore. They seemed to be talking vehemently, probably about went down in the kitchen. Even though there was no major conflict, I felt that they might not be willing follow our normal protocol. It wasn't a big deal, but if Bruce were to come, he would want to take Damian back with him.

I tapped my fingers against the counter; they were now with the Red giant thing they flew on. A sudden surge of panic went threw me when I realized that they could just as easily take off as they did come in to our lives. I stood up and watched them a bit more attentively. Bruce would be pissed if I told him I managed to lose his son less than 24 hours. When I had told him he had a son, his end of the line went dead. It was so quiet that for a second I thought he had dropped the phone and I missed the sound of it cutting off. When I finally heard him breathe again all he could ask me was what I meant.

Explaining to him that Damian was the son of Talia and that he was from Rhas Alghul was easy, but that left we in this awkward conversation of him admitting that he and Talia had been, ummm, intimate once. He said that he was not aware that she had become pregnant from that. Anyway, after that I explained to him that Damian had managed to run away from them and was currently teamed up with the daughter of Ducard, a nobody assassin that Bruce had gone to-toe with at some point, and then there was this Ducard boy that I had to actually do some research on. He was from centuries ago. So yeah, since the world hadn’t been destroyed yet, his story held up.

After that, the question came up on how long they were on their own. Batman wanted as much information he could gather to make sure that this wasn’t a trap, but to be honest, the way his voice rose and the way he became into excited at the idea of Damian existing. He was happy that Damian existed. When we dug around, and with the little information I got from the three about where they have been, we found a handful of reports the league had barely collected regarding them and what kind of activities they were up to. We found the initial story of the Durcard boy. There was a small disturbance where they must have fought, and he subsequently joined them. After that, stories of how all three of them saved small villages or helped stopped terrorist or poachers. They were doing a good job.

Bruce seemed happy at the thought they were doing things like this, well as happy as he could sound as Batman. He was meant to come within the hour, before any of the other leaguers got here. He said that he wanted to observe them and get a feel of them, but a more optimistic part of me thought that he’d just wanted to see his son try to understand him before the others came.

The kids continued to pet the big red thing and talk. It seemed like they had come to some form of census to stay, which was good. They had a bit of a right to fear being separated, but in time they would see that they could expand their world, far past than each other. For the time being thought, we will have to wait and see how they would react to the big guys coming in.

Speaking of which, on the far side of my desk a bright red light lit up and turned green. Indicating that someone had just entered our flight deck and landed. No doubt who that was. Standing up I redid myself for the Bat to come in and meet me so I can take him to his spawn. Taking one last look at the three of them on the beach, I turned and walked to the comms room.


	5. meet the justice fuck ups

After we had spent an hour petting Goliath, maya asked us if we should go back in now that we had time to cool off and talk. I Shrugged indifferent. Goliath didn't seem to care which way we went. He got his pets in and was content to lay on the ground for the time being, but she had a point. We should go in and see what the others were doing and see if the grown ups had come yet. I doubted it, i'm sure they would have come out to see us if they had . 

We walked back in and was about to make a turn to the living room when Tim’s voice came us.

“Hey you three, come here, Batman is here and he wants to meet you guys. Come on, he’s in the training facilities.” Tim was overjoyed at seeing his mentor probably and was excited for us to meet the man ourselves. I felt a bit abrasive at the idea of meeting him, but Tim was trained by this man, so he must be even better than him! Looking at it this way, i felt a bit more at peace at the idea of having to move forward with this plan. And like maya said, if worse came to worse, what could they do to stop us? I walked a bit straighter and more with a purpose than before. Feeling confident that finally, i knew what i was doing. Even though i'm sure no one else was knew where this was going. Play it by ear. 

Walking into the training hall, i saw the imposing black figure of a man in a ridiculous bat suite. And when i say ridicules, i mean that it was ridiculously awesome. Granted silly looking when i saw the bat ears on top of his head, but other than that his suite was armoured to the teeth and probably filled with hidden weapons. This guy had to be cool.. Maye even more than Robin was! 

“Batman this is Maya, Suren and Damian. Guys this is The Batman, world’s greatest detective.” the introduction wasn't necessary, but tim’s ability to put on a show was good. It definitely cemented the fact that this man was indeed important. 

“It's good to meet you there, you've done good work in the past and i personally look forward to working with you in the future.Tim’s eyes caught mine for a moment, but i'm pretty sure they had this kind of glint in them that was michivues. Like he knew something we didn't. I glared at him for abit before going back to staring up at the batman.

“I look forward to seeing how you work.” i said as i stepped forward. I took the leader role for this situation.it was my grandfather, so i would know the most, and even stil. Suren had no idea who this guy was, and maya was a nobody, and if anybody in the assassins world knew, was that nobody and batman had a beef. 

Batman smiled at me and held his hand out. I inspected the hand quickly, granted i wouldn't expect anything like a poison needle, but i had not survived this long without being cautious. I took his hand in a firm grip and let him hold mine for a moment., before i began to pull away. 

“Well, now that we are all acquainted, how about we go sit down and wait for the others to come.” Robin suggested. I nodded and let him lead us to a small waiting room. There wasn't any chairs, but i assumed that this is where they would have us meet. Maya and suren stayed close to me, but they chose a different corner where i opted to lean on a concrete pillar. I leaned back and watched both robin and batman take their respected spots. Not too close not too far from me. I kept my eye on both of them, and i felt their gaze return the favor. The way batman’s gaze seemed to track every detail of me made me feel paranoid. What was he seeing ? i squinted my eyes at him to try and tell him he was staring too much and to cut it out. I know that this was odd, but this was still rude. It just seemed to amuse him. He smirked a bit at me,like he was teasing me, and turned his gaze to his robin who returned a meaningful look. I was quickly getting annoyed with them. I huffed and turned my gaze away from them. 

Soon enough there was a weird warping sound that came with a flash of blue light. A man in what looked like a green version of robin hood stepped off with a woman in black. Green arrow and black canary somewhere in the back of my mind supplied me. They were part of the justice league. Robin introduced us and i got to shake their hands too, Green arrow tried to make small conversation with us, but Suren side tracked him by asking him if he was related to robin hood and if he wasn't, why did he dress like that. I too was curious, but as Maya pointed out, there were odder outfits in this world. I.e the man dressed as a giant bat not too far away from us. Robin giggled at the comment, while Batman himself just shrugged it off. Im sure he had heard it all at this point. Green arrow told us to wait for Green lantern to show and we would see someone dig into batman. Batman grimaced at that. 

Soon enough, more and more of the justice leaguers showed and we got to meet all the greats. Even Superman, although to be honest, he was sort of over hyped. When he tried to ruffle my hair i dodged him and when he tried to do the same thing to Suren he was bitten. It of course didn't hurt him, but it got the message across faster than anything else i could of done. Maya apologized to him for Suren, but she couldn't hide the smile that was stitched across her face. Suren was a biter, but watching Superman’s face drop in shock was gold. Batman barked out a quick laugh while no one else seemed to be willing to hide their glee at watching the man have to pry off a preteen. 

Once he did get him off if him, Batman stepped in and started a quick introduction. They started to talk around us. Talking about what was the best solution.

“ Well, i think that if anyone is going to take them it should be Batman.” robin spoke up, vouching for us and trying to keep us together.

“I can agree, but to be honest, should he really be allowed to take in more kids? Doesn't he have enough? What if i want my own adopted child.” Green lantern voiced.

“You are a child hal, there is no way we would allow you to raise one.” Hawkgirl shot back at him. 

“Ouch. im able to raise one of them. Huh kids? Who wants to stay with uncle lantern.” He gave each of us a big grin. I turned to Maya and Suren with a serious look. I honestly hoped to god he wasn't being serious. 

“This might be a bad idea.” i told Suren and was trying to send the message that maybe we should just leave now. If this Green lantern was a viable solution to who would get to train us, i already knew we were screwed. We would be better off on our own.

“Relax, he’s just kidding. He knows he’s now allowed to have children.” Green arrow pointed out. 

“What?”

“What?” Green lantern and i voiced at the same time. Why wasn't he allowed to be near kids?

“Don't take it that way, he’s on pay roll for the military. He can't live off base and you three are kids that need room to run around. I volunteer in taking all three in!” 

“Arrow, you can't take all three of them.”

“And why not? I have the room and the funds to take care of them.”

“Yes, but not the security.”

“Im green arrow, i have an eye that that can catch anything.”

“But master assassins. Batman is more equipped in taking on Rha’s men.”

“True, but they are so cute. Can't i have one?”

“You have artemis and she’s plenty cute for you.” Black canary said. I was not pleased the way this was going.

“Yes, but she’s a teenager. I want a kid and these here are practically still babies.”

“Stop it mother hen. They will be at Batman’s home, i'm sure he won't mind you coming over for a visit. Right Batman?” She gave the man a pointed look, to which he replied.

“If i see him on my property i will set off the traps.” Robin smacked his head. I turned to MAya and Suren as the league argued amongst themselves.

“ It's not too late to just slip out.” I whispered to them.

“Think we can sneak away?” i looked at the arguing adults and saw that they now had their backs to us. I calmly started to walk out the room. No one said anything so i motioned for Maya and Suren to follow. Once out of range of their arguing we started to talk.

“So what you think?”

“We aren't going with anyone who is wearing Green that's for sure.” I decided.

“Seconded, but what do we do?”

“ Its seems most of them are pushing for the Batman, which i'm not against. He is well versed and he trained Robin, so he knows how to take Grandfather down.”

“You still seem hesitant about it though.” Maya perceived.

“I am. It's just the change. That and he just annoys me.”

“How did he annoy you already? You haven't known him for more than an hour.”

“It takes less than a minute to annoy me if you know how. It's nothing really, he just staring at me. Made me uncomfortable..”

“Well, you are something to stare at.” Suren joked.

“Shut up Suren. I don't know. What do you think Maya. we can get out of here right now, or we can stay and see where this leads us.” Maya seemed to think it over.

“If i stay with Batman, that makes me an official traitor to my dad.”

“Yeah, and he wasn't too happy about you teaming up with me.”

“Yeah, he would be really mad at me if i stayed. I don't know. Batman seems nice, but he’s my dad.”

“We can leave Maya. we don't have to do this.”

“If we leave though, that puts you two in more danger.”

“We live for danger. Besides we can continue to train by ourselves. We don't need these guys.”

“We kind of do.”

“No we don't. I met my all time hero yesterday and he said he just got lucky. We have skill and the know how. We can beat the league. Or wait them out. Grandfather will eventually get tired of sending out league members to try and capture us. Once he see’s that i'm a lost cause, he will be done with me.”

“What about your mom?”

“She hasn't come after me. She just sees this as me taking my own path to power or whatever. She doesn't care what i'm doing. As long as i continue to become stronger.” 

“So we can leave? Just like that?”

“I'd like to seem them try to stop us.”

“Unfortunately, we might have to after that little conversation.” we all jumped and spun to see Robin and some of the league members behind us.

Oh shit.

“Oh shit indeed.” Green arrow echoed, but did i say that out loud?

“So umm, what you guys talking about?”

“Uhhhh, liverpool.”

“Liverpool?”

“Yes, liverpool. Liverpool in GTFO.” with that Suren used his magic to send out a nonlethal surge of power at the line of heroes’, giving us that chance we needed to run out of the hall. We dashed out of the hall, knocking off anything attached to the walls to slow them down. The sound of pounded feet behind us just gave us more reason to run faster. We kept going as fast as we could. The door that would lead us out to the shore where Goliath would more than likely be waiting was just in reach. A ghost of a hand swiped at me, but missed by centimeters as i ducked and threw a shield that was hanging on the wall at them. It hits target, which turned out to be Green arrow. Ha! How did he like that baby throw? We were basically home free, or at least that was my thought prior to being tackled to the ground. A full grown man had managed to lunge at me and take me down. Looking up i saw a man dressed in black armour that was reminiscent to Batman’s, but had a blue bird insignia on the chest rather than the bat crest. 

“Whoa there, we got a runner? Well actually, we shouldn't have a runner.” the voice was young, and although it belonged to the person who was currently practically sitting on me, it was friendly.

“Nightwing. Good catch, a little aggressive, but i suppose it might have been required.” Batman said as he helped nightwing haul me up. He gripped my bicep in a stern grip, not painful, but definitely not something i could break out of easily. 

“Thanks, but what is going on. All i saw was this kid here take out arrow you chasing him. Something i'm missing here?”

“This is Damian. He is Talia Al Ghul's son. He will be staying with us for now on.”

“Finally figured out that part i see.” i perked in. seeing as last time i had listened to him, he was arguing with the league. 

“ wait so, what happened?”

“He and his compatriots over there are being tracked by Rha’s and they came to us for advice, we were discussing what was the best course of action when this happened.”

“Well, after seeing what the justice league was, we figured we might be fine on our own. Also the idea of having to be anywhere near the idiot robin hood made us all nausea.” The man now known as nightwing chuckled a bit. 

“Ahhh, i see, instead of letting children run across the continents, going to be responsible and not let them be hunted down by killer assassins.”

“That was the idea, till we saw that these punks were about to slip out.” Green arrow had now gained his breathe back from the shield that i had used to take him out. 

“We would have been more open to the idea if we didn't realize that the criteria to be part of the league included you. We were not impressed.” Green lantern mumbled about not needing to impress a 10 year old and how next time i should watch out. 

“Thats enough. We will have to talk about this. For now we will have to keep you three restrained till further notice.” Batman ordered. Nightwing reached into his belt and pulled some plastic zip ties and started to tie my wrist up. When i was secured he spun me around to look me in the eye, but when he did his body froze. His back was rigid and he breathing stopped. I didn't look that much like my grandfather for that type of reaction. The only thing he and i had in common was my eye color and skin tone. I glared back at his domino covered eyes as he continued to stare intensely into mine. I was about to make a biting remark about how this doesn't mean we were bonding, but was interrupted at the sound of Sirens screaming bloody murder about being cuffed. Wonder women was next to him, trying to get him to calm down while Green Arrow was trying to cuff him, but was having issues with him jerking his body violently. 

“Suren! Stop it! They got us!” 

“No! Fuck them!”

“Suren please try to calm down!” Maya pleaded.” You're not helping the situation.” 

“Suren just stop it. It's over for now, ok.”

“But Maya can't go. So we need to get out.”

“Suren, that's if she goes willing. Technically we are in handcuffs. Its for the best. It's over for now.”

“No, we need to get out.”

“Suren come on. We are done.”

Suren finally tired himself out and let Arrow cuff him. When he started to make him walk forward to where Batman had gone, Suren let his body fall. He wasn't about to start walking for him. Arrow just picked him up and started to walk with him in his arms.

“Are you going to make me carry you?” Nightwing asked me. I shook my head, rolling my eyes. I started to walk forward. Maya slowly following us. 

 

Nightwing had to hoist me into the cockpit of Batman’s plane. He sat me down and buckled me in. i watched him do the same to Suren and Maya. 

“Wait!” Batman and Nightwing looked over to me.

“What is it?”

“Goliath! I can't just leave him here.” 

“Goliath?” Nightwing asked. Batman looked around when Robin's voice came up.

“That big red thing that flies. It's still on the beach. Looks like it's playing in the sand.” They remained quiet for a minute thinking about what to do. There was no way they would let me take him at this point, but may god help them if leave him behind.

“Why couldn't it be a damn dog.” Batman mumbled before getting up jumping out of the pilot's seat. 

Nightwing called for him, but Robin jumped into his seat and started to mess with the monitors. Soon i saw the beach with goliath on the shore. When Batman came on, he was carrying a rope now. He tried to throw it over goliath’s head, but goliath jumped leaned out of its way. When he tried again, Goliath caught it. It started a tug of war match between the two. Nightwing and Robin started to crack up watching Batman try to get the rope back, but seeing as Goliath was seeing it more of a play time thing he wasn't getting anywhere. Goliath won, of course. Batman’s body went flying towards goliath and collided in his chest. Batman didn't let the opportunity slip though, he managed to use the end of this rope to tie it around goliaths midsection. Goliath was surprised by the action and stood up. Dropping Batman in the process. Batman rolled away from him. Holding the other end of the rope now. When he tried to tug on the rope, Goliath didn't budge. He just got a confused look. Batman said something and goliath took a step forward, but stopped. Batman pulled again, but Goliath just sat down. He wouldn't leave that spot unless i told him to. I wasn't about to tell Batman that though. 

Nightwing and Robin were losing it though. Watching Batman try and wrestle Goliath was funny, but i was worried he might get hurt. Goliath can be very aggressive if he feels threatened. Batman pulled again before seemingly giving up. Wonder women came out then, she seemed to interested in what batman was doing. They seemed to be talking about Goliath and she nodded at him before stepping up to my partner. 

She made some grand gestures at him and she looked to be yelling at him. Why? I had now idea. Yelling at him never worked. When that didn't seem to get the reaction she wanted she grabbed the rope that batman still had and used it to drag Goliath down. I yelled out in shock. She was hurting him! 

Batman stepped in, but Goliath bowed to her and flew up. It looked like they started to fight midair, but he seemed to be playing more than anything. Batman took off back thru the door to us. Robin quickly dismantled the video feed and flung himself to another seat. Nightwing did the same. 

Not even a moment later the sound of pounding feet was heard and batman hoisted himself up. Quickly hitting the buttons that would make the air craft rise. We began to lift off the ground and above the tower. Not too far away I could see Goliath and Wonder Woman flying not too far away. Once Goliath caught sight of me though he took off in our direction. Following us to wherever batman was taking us.


	6. 6

The lights that sparkled against night sky as we managed to finally flew across a large city. The lights glinted against the night, making it seem like we were flying next to the stars. Maya and suren were both transfixed with the sights as well. With Goliath, we had always flow across the sky, and it was always a beautiful sight, but we had avoided more condensed areas, like cities. It was a real treat to be able get over it and see the sights. It was like we're in space. Next to the stars. It was indeed captivating, but not as captivated as we are. Batman hadn’t let us out of our restraints even though we had agreed that we wouldn’t try anymore of those shenanigans. Night wing had tried to keep us entertained with jokes and stories and granted they were grating on my nerves at first, I found them somewhat jovial and at least it was something to take my mind off the fact that I was handcuffed.

“Are we there yet?” I asked and Batman answered no. five minutes later I asked again and he said 15 minutes. I still asked 5 minutes later, mostly to just do something. I was bored and have never been this in active for this long. I just shaking to get up and move, but if I tried to bust out, I’m sure Nightwing and Robin would jump on me, and granted it would be something to do; I don’t want to humiliate myself further. I still kinda wanted to be cool for Robin; I mean he was really cool. He was able to hack the bat plane or whatever this thing is called and not tip batman off. That was still cool, and although nightwing was the one that tackled the shit out of me, he was ok. Somewhat annoying, but he was ok. Batman was still so-so with. Part of me resented him, but another part of me wanted to just let him take over for now. I was tired and he seemed like he had some kind of plan, or at least was able to scare the shit out of grandfather. That explain why I never heard of him though. Grandfather never wanted to show weakness and he expected the same from me, but if this man was able to scare the crap out of him, than that means Grandfather wouldn’t have told me about him. So he must have lightness to him. Or at least that my line of thinking.

“10 more minutes.” he sighed out, but I could practically see the smirk on his face.

“We will be there soon. Just try and relax.” Nightwing said from his seat in front.

“We’ve been sitting here for hours!” Suren complained. He had managed to fall asleep for like 30 minutes before he woke up again to complain. Maya was sitting quietly, but she seemed to be just as eager to finally stand and get out of the hand cuffs.

“I know, I know. Just think about what ….you would like for dinner!”

“Dinner? Really?” Maya was incredulous.

“Yeah, Alfred is the best cook. Ever. He can make anything.” Night wing boasted to us.

“ *groan* I don’t want to eat. I want to get up and do something.” I complained.

“Don’t whine Damian. After that stunt you guys pulled, you should have expected it.”

“You guys were talking about sending us to an apparent kid collector or someone who would have probably tried to put us in a kennel or feed of dog food.” I shot back. Suren gagged and Maya just rolled her eyes and stared out the window.

“He wouldn’t have fed you dog food.”, Nightwing joked.

“Doesn’t matter, we went with the kid collector.”

“Ohhhh, B. shots fired.”

“Not really. This is temporary till we can set up a more permanent plan.” Batman said as he made a turn into a dark cave. Can’t say didn’t see that coming.

“What you mean B? Isn't little D staying with us?” Nightwing's voice hushed, but I could still hear him.

“We will talk about this later.” And with that, I assumed our journey was over. I kicked my feet back and forth. They had been hanging over the floor for the duration of the trip and I cursed the fact that I was still too short for them to touch the ground. They were numb and I wanted the feeling back in them. Robin came up to me and unbuckled me and I hopped out of the seat. I walked over to the side of the plane and waited for them to instruct me next. Nightwing just picked me up and hauled me over the plane and unto the floor where he landed in front of an older gentleman who was dressed in formal clothes.

“Hey Alfred. Guess what we got?” he held me like a prize up to the man’s examination. The man leaned forward to inspect me.

“I see. Very nice catch Master Richard, but if I may be sold bold to ask, why is he tied up?” The question made the man now known as Richard put me on my feet and spin me around.

“Oh yeah. Forgot about that. Ok. If I let you go, do you promise not to run off like last time.” I puffed my cheeks at him and was tempted to tell him that we had already said we wouldn't, but he seemed like he was too happy for me to just go and destroy it for him. Maya and Suren were now waiting to be cut too. I guess it was up to me.

“I said yes already, we will stay till something happens, now would you just let me out of these damn things.”

“No swearing.” He admonished me. I rolled my eyes.

“For the love of! Damian, just fucking says yes. My hands cramped an hour ago.” Suren bit at me.

“Fine! Yes I promise! We won’t do anything like that.” He smiled and leaned down like he was about to release me.

“Good. Pinky promise.”

“What in god’s name is that.”

“Damian, just give him your pinky.” Maya begged now.

“He’s going to take my pinky? Like my finger? Hell no!”

“Relax, I only will take it if you break your promise.” Richard hooked his finger with mine, which we were still cuffed and began to cut away the plastic ties. Soon everyone was free, or as free as we were going to get for now.

“Now that’s over, dinner is ready upstairs for everyone.” Alfred said as he gently guided me up the stairs after Maya and Suren. I saw Batman and the other two starts to undress and slip into sweats. Soon I was seated at a large table with steaming piles of food. I a particularly picky eater, but I felt like I should have mentioned I wasn’t going to be able to eat half of the stuff the man put on my plate. I had made to elective decision years ago, that animals were just as necessary as humans. This meant I was a vegetarian.

The others came up from the downstairs and I could finally see batman and nightwing as they were. Richard was a young man, looked to be in his 20’s if I had to guess. He had soft blue eyes with a paled out tan that suggested that he was not of Gotham lineage but probably has lived here for years.  
Batman though, he was indeed much older and it showed in his eyes. A sharp blue that spoke volumes of experience and intelligence contrasted against the paleness he seemed to exhume. The lines under his eyes drew my attention. Many sleepy nights. Then again. Batman. His face though seemed stern and harsh, had a softness that retained some kind of gentle soul.  
“ Why aren't you eating?” Tim said as he pokes me. I looked down and picked up a piece of broccoli and ate it to show I was. Tim just shrugged and continued to eat. The table was quiet and the sound of silverware hitting plates was all that was heard. I ate what I could and put my fork down. Maya and siren continued to eat Undisturbed.

It wasn't long till Tim noticed again I had stopped and asked me again. I was hoping to tell the butler later in a more private area. It wasn't that I was ashamed of being. Vegetarian, but I didn't want them to feel that I was infringing on them. Then again, I wasn't exactly her willingly. I just shrugged off the question. Richard got involved then.

“ Come on, I told you. Alfred is the best cook. His food is good.” He played with me. When I still hadn't answered him and looked up to the man of the house. Who just remained quiet for now.

“It’s not drugged if that's it.” Tim said offhandedly. I rolled my eyes. Not what I was worried about, but thanks for putting that in my head.

“ Tim!” Richard admonished.

“What dick? It's a legit fear.” Dock ignored him to instead focus on Damian, who he was already sliding into little brother position.

“Damian. What's wrong with it? You have to be hungry.” I was kinda still, but always was. This was just fine.

“I’m fine, just done.” In the corner of my eye, I saw Maya rolling hers. I kinda wish they would focus on something else now. I didn’t mean to draw attention, I was just done. Richard backed up off me and turned to Bruce.

“Bruce?” Richard made a poignant look at him. Bruce sighed and leaned over his meal.

“Damian -”

“Oh for the love of Aman'Thul! He is just a vagina!” What the fuck Suren?

“What? Vagina?”

“That’s a new one.”

“Please calm down, Suren. He means pussy, I think.” Maya finally stood up.

“Damian is being a pussy because he is not eating meat, at least he is to Suren.” Maya gestured to both me and Suren.

“What kind of person chooses not to eat meat when it is offered?” Suren complained.

“Animals have rights too.”

“The right to be in my stomach.” Sometimes Suren just made me want to punch him again.

“Ok, ok, you two. Calm down. Suren you can eat meat, Damian, just say that you don’t and then this all goes away. No one is going to make fun of you for it.”

“Suren just did.”

“Yes, well Suren is an ass.” true.

“Damian, don’t worry. It’s fine. We can just have something else brought out.” Bruce said as he motioned for Alfred to come over and grabbed the plate from me. I gave an apologetic smile. I felt kind of bad that I wasting food, but I didn’t want to compromise my morals. Alfred didn’t seem mad though, he just picked up the plate and gave me a small smile back and turned to leave the room.

“Don’t worry about that Damian. We should have asked to see if there was any preference for any of you.” Richard said as he took his seat again.

“Nah I’m sorry. I should have just said something.” Richard kept saying it was fine while Bruce went back to eating, but kept a close eye on me. Alfred came out in a bit with more vegetables and some bread. I thanked him as he set it down. He smiled and made a comment about how he was happy to finally have someone in the house that chose to eat more vegetables. That made me feels a bit better. We spent the rest of the dinner eating in small talk. Tim and Richard kept asking us questions about what we were doing on our travels. I let Suren tell most of the stories. I was starting to get tired and Bruce must have taken noticed because he stood up and called for Alfred to come and show us to our room .

“Come on, young ones. I will show you to your room.”

“Can you show us where the bathrooms are? I would like to shower before bed.” Maya said as she played with her arms guard.

“There will be bathrooms joined to your rooms, but there is a restroom down the hallway.”

“Wonderful.”

“You want to shower again?” Suren was exasperated.

“ Yes, and you two will shower as well. Unless you want to have a rerun of last night.” Suren shuddered while I ignored the comment. Considering that I hadn’t been the one she caught last time, and that I don’t have this odd aversion to bathing like Suren, I wasn’t too worried.

“ Id listens to her. I heard what happened at the tower and the water and ceiling damage was extensive.” Ceiling damage? What the hell happened? I looked to Maya, who just smiled at me like she was reliving an amusing battle. Suren just raised his back like a cat on guard. 

“Please try to refrain from doing so here.” Alfred opened the door to our rooms. We each had our own rooms that were exceptionally large. Fully furnished with king sized beds and large flat screens. And we each got one room that was an exact copy.

“Now this is luxury.” Maya said as she went to her room and plopped herself down on the bed and began to roll over the covers. I and suren both stood awkwardly outside our rooms. Me because I didn’t want to leave them quite yet. We had been together the whole time in the plane, but we hadn’t had any alone time since. We couldn’t talk about what had happened. Suren though, he seemed averse to going into a room made for absolute comfort. He was a dargona boy, and that meant he was supposed to live with little comfort.

“You two should probably go get ready for bed.” Maya suggested, but I caught and evil glint that spoke of how she wanted us gone for now. She needed her ‘alone’ time. Whatever that meant. I left Suren still in the hallway and closed my door. The room was nice, like the teens titans were, but I just couldn’t see myself getting comfortable here. It kind of reminded me of the guest rooms back at grandfathers. I was never permitted a room like this, I always had a rather bare room, but when I left the league had no room, so maybe it was whiplash I was feeling. Part of me still wanted to go out and sleep under the stars like we had for the past few months, but decisions were made and I doubt Batman had any reason’s to let us go so easily.

I showered and dressed in the borrowed clothes the Alfred had left me. They were cotton blue pajama’s that were rather comfortable, but even as I lay in the giant bed, that’s sole mission was to swallow me into softness, I couldn’t sleep. Every noise seemed to set off alarm bells in me. I rolled around the bed with my eyes clothes hoping that id finds the end, but oddly enough ,it seemed like there was no end. I kept the game up for a bit, before I got tired and just got up. I sat up and had to crawl to the end of the bed. I dangled my feet over the edge of the bed. If wasn’t going to sleep, then maybe I should try to get Suren and Maya. I was about to hop down the bed when the rooms door cracked open a bit. Suren stuck his head through the crack and looked to see me up. His face it up in a big grin seeing that I was awake.

“You’re awake?”

“Yeah. What’s up?” I answered back.

“Shhh, be quiet or the bat might hear.” I rolled my eyes at him. Bruce might be batman, but he doesn’t have bat hearing. I think.

“Ok, what’s up?” I whispered at him again. He walked in silently closed the door.

“I can’t sleep in the room of atrocities.”

“We have the same room.” I reasoned.

“Yes, but at least here we both can suffer this delusion of hell they are imposing on us.”

“Uhhh, ok? So you want to just sleep in the same bed?”

“As if I would like to sleep with you, you ameba.” I rolled my eyes.

“I meant we sleep next to each other. Kind of like before.”

“Oh, well in that case, yes. Sharing the space would indeed more preferable at the moment.” I slid over for him, but he just hopped in, causing both of us to bounce. It was a momentary distraction, but enough for us to be put a bit at ease. Soon though we calmed down enough and took the opposite corner of the bed.

“So, you couldn’t sleep too?”

“No. this place is full of phantoms.” I heard the house move, causing an odd whooshing sound.

“Yeah, it kinda creepy.”

“What do you think we should do for this one?”

“You mean, what I think we should do?”

“Yes, I for one am humiliated at the fact we were caught so easily.”

“To be fair it was kind of spur of the moment, and to even be more truthful, we knew we were out matched. We made a bad call going to Robin and his team. It’s like walking into my grandfather compound and asking him how he’d fight against global warming or something, and then expecting to walk out.”

Suren seemed to be taking his time in thought, which was fine by me. With him by me know, I was slowly lulling into a sleep.

“Do you think we should try again?”

“To escape? Not for now, we need them to trust us and then who knows maybe we were overreacting. Maybe they do know what they are doing. Or maybe they just have a heavier hand than us. Regardless, we are stuck here, let’s just try and get along for now.”

“I see, so we should just stay in wait.”

“Yeah, *Yawn* we just need to play it smooth till they are cool with us enough.”

“What do you think will happen tomorrow?”

“Mmmmm, not sure. They will probably want to interview each of us to document what has happened and maybe make a plan.”

“That makes sense.”

“Yeah.” it went quiet at that. I felt Suren move on the other side to get deeper under the covers and I followed suit. I started to fall into a deep sleep, I was able to hear Suren’s breathing clearer now and was lulled to that and the sound of the old house moving.


	7. The Red Hood

The library was massive and so full of so many different books that I was at a lost and must have had a dumbstruck look on my face. Grandfather’s palace had a vast library, but this one held so much variety than what his held. I was hoping that once we were done with these interviews, I would get the chance to come back in here and do some snooping. Maybe find a book, and disappear for some time. First thing first, I must answer to Bruce’s questions.

He had me seated by a window that opened to the large backyard that must have been miles long. Lush green and calming trees that swayed with the wind. Definitely a good spot to keep the anxiety down. I think that why Bruce chose this spot. To help me unwind from having to talk about all of this.

“Ok, Damian, let’s start easy. Just tell me about yourself.” Bruce was sitting in the chair across from me. Hands clasped in front of him, leaning forward to show he was interested.

“Ok, like what do you want to know about me?”

“Anything will do for now. Let’s just talk. Why don't you tell me what you like to do?”

“umm, ok, I like to play fetch with Goliath.” I offered. I didn’t want to really tell him and it would be obvious that I loved to play with my giant pet.

“Yeah? How did you get Goliath? I’m sure you couldn’t have gotten him from any pet store.”

“Yeah, no I found him when I was sent out by my grandfather to take some kind of sacred object from them. I met him there.”

“How did that go?” I became uncomfortable with that question. When I had found goliath, I was still under my grandfather tillage. He had me sent to goliath’s home temple to slaughter his kind and take their treasures. Goliath at the time was only a pup of the family. So, he was not part of the battle, but I still slaughtered his family. Blood on my hands that I could not wash away, but I hope to one day rectify the act, if only a fraction. I didn’t want to get into that type of conversation with Bruce though. It was that mission that helped me make up my mind. Grandfather was not a good force for this world, and I had to leave him behind, if I did not wish to become engulfed by his insanity and darkness. I got up from my seat, and started to walk around the small space that Bruce occupied. I was only able to really walk around for 6 steps, but I took them and just kept pacing them. Avoiding eye contact with Bruce. Bruce didn’t say anything about my random need to get up and move. He just watched me start moving and waited for me to answer.

Moving around helped me calm down and let me think, but I didn’t really want to tell him about that mission.

“Damian?” Bruce called for my attention. His tone not harsh, but it deeds make me want to answer. I looked up at him. His face was still stern looking, but it was his eyes that said it was ok for me not to answer.

“I like to read. Do you like to read?” I took his non-vocal way out and asked him a simple question.

“Yes, I do. What do you like to read?”

“I like to read adventure and mystery genre. Those are my favorite.” I kept moving around him, trying to ease the energy that was still bubbling over inside of me.

“I like those two. There are a few books in here that I’m sure you would enjoy. After we get done with this, your welcome to go and browse when we are done here.”

“Thanks” I found my way back to my chair and sat down. Bruce seemed happy that I had finally calmed down.

“Damián, I know that it makes you uncomfortable, but I do need to know about your grandfather. I need to know what he is doing so I can help.” I knew that, I just wanted to try and figure out how to tell him what he needed to know and what I could avoid telling him about. There was no reason for him to know all my secrets. I have no plan to really stay once this is all figured out and I was going to use that as a reason not to tell him everything. I was going to leave soon, and there was no reason for me to air it all to someone who I barely knew. 

“I know, ok. The last time we had any integration with grandfather was 2 months ago. He had cornered me in the temple of St. mangos. He gave us an ultimatum, turn over Suren and return to him or be considered a traitor. I took on the name traitor and now we are being hunted by the league. We had managed to avoid him because I know where almost all his bases are and I have a deep understanding and know of who his followers are. I know what countries he has power over and who is agents are.”

“Would you be willing to show me on a map?”

“If you have one, I will mark them off for you. “Bruce seemed a bit surprised that I’d be willing to even mark them for him, but to be honest. I realized I was a traitor to my grandfather the moment I left his compound. And I knew there was no real love once he started to send assassins after me. I wasn't his grandson. Now anymore, so why should I keep his secrets?

“ok, later I will take you down to the cave and you can show me where. Umm Damián? Are you ok? I know I asked how you were, but considering circumstances, I fear that this might be a bit overwhelming for you.” his tone sounded like he was legit ally concerned. Which in turn was confusing, I mean. Shouldn’t he be happy? I was giving him basically his greatest enemy on a silver platter. He should be focusing on that.

“I’m fine.” my tone was sharp. I didn’t mean to make it sharp I just suppose the question was a bit more intrusive than what I was expecting. He took it in stride though. Taking a breath, he leaned back into his chair. I felt the need to start moving again. I didn’t though. I tapped on my chairs arm.

“Ok, Damián, but if you want to talk, just come to me. Ok?”

“Pinky promise?” the sarcastic response was out before I could stop it.

“Promise.” Bruce leaned forward and hooked his pinky with mine in a soft grip. I was taken back a bit, but I let him hold my hand for the time being. I also let him decide when to end our physical contact, which is probably why it lasted a bit too long.

“Are we done for now?”

“Yeah, later tonight we can go down to the cave and you can point out those spots.”

“Good. till then I would like to go and look at those books.” I hoped out of my chair at sauntered towards the door.

“You don’t have to leave, I can take the others to another room for the time being.” Bruce tried to keep me in the room.

“No thanks, I think I will just go see dick and Tim for now and then come here later.” Bruce’s face fell a bit, but he knew I was still going to be watched.

“Alights then. If you could send in your friend, Suren?”

I closed to the door and stepped out. Suren and Maya were outside of the library though. Trying to look like they weren’t eavesdropping on us.

“See? Nothing too bad.”

“Just super awkward. Man, I cringed for you.” Maya made a scrunched-up face at me.

“Shhh, if you two could hear us, then he can hear us.” I shushed her and looked at the closed door. Which didn’t make sense I didn’t have any x-ray vision so it was a worthless act. “Sooo, which one of you want to go in next?” the two of them shared a look and Maya shrugged her shoulders and sauntered to the door. I rolled my eyes as she gave her version of a famous entrance and loudly introduced herself to Bruce. The door shut behind her and their voices became muffled. I was not interested in eavesdropping on her interview so I turned to Suren and recommended that we go outside till they were done.

We walked to the backyard, but stopped at the large patio when we noticed dick and Tim lounging at a table.

“Hey, you two! You done already?” Dick waved at us. His smile bright and welcoming. Tim sat up a bit straighter when we approached. He is holding a book in his lap. The bright red and gold embroidery binding peaked my interest. Tim noticed my curiosity and smiled kindly at me. Using his foot to push an open chair out. Offering me the position next to him. Giddiness at the thought that robin wanted me to sit next to him. I suppose that blind admiration for Tim hadn’t faded yet. I was about to take the offered seat, but Suren side stepped me and took the seat instead. Tim’s eyebrows rose in surprised while I was just left in the dust. I was a bit peeved at Suren. How can someone be so dense?

“Suren.” I warned him, but he just turned to look at me with such wide questioning eyes. He had no clue that he just stepped on me. I cursed his name under me breathe as I took the other seat by dick, who seemed happy that I was taking the one by him instead.

“Damian is done with his interview, but I will go after Maya. that will not be for a while.”

“Oh? And why is that?” Tim said as he brought his book up to his attention.

“Maya has much to say for a woman. Too much, but I feel that is the consequences to this period allowing so much freedom to women.” Damn it Suren.

“Whoa man. Might want to watch what you say.” Dick called out.

“Ignore him. Whenever he says this, Maya is usually around when he goes into this kind of talk and she usually beats the crap out of him.” I offhand said as I rolled my eyes at Suren. I would let Maya deal with him.

“See man? Girls always win.” Dick joked with him as he leaned back, slapping his hand against the table.

“Humph. I didn’t say it was necessary a bad thing.” I rolled my eyes again and let the conversation drop. Dick took over the conversation and directed it to one of our adventures we had at a tuku temple a few months back. We had been there to find the map to Atlantis. Long story short, it didn’t lead us to Atlantis. It instead led us to some place off the coast of New York called garbage island. We were not amused. On the bright side, we raised some awareness for the pollution in the ocean. Well after me and Suren lost our shit about how he could have destroyed the world and how it was annoying to see that his decision not to was a waste and mine on the fact that the local ocean life was either migrating too far away from their natural environment or dying off. We attacked the people that were illegally dumping on this already mound of garbage.

Dick and Tim seemed to find the story of our debacle attempt to find Atlantis funny. Which in hindsight, it was.

“You know, we can just take you guys down there if you want to see it. I mean, we know aquaman and he is kind of the king of Atlantis. “

“Really? That be real cool! I always wanted to see the bottom of the ocean.” Maya said as she came from behind us. We had gotten so caught up in our story we didn’t notice how much time had passed. The bright sun had now turned orange in the dusk. Maya came up to me to the table, but she kept her face turned away from dick and Tim and focused on me. Considering her eyes, I noticed a bit of redness and that her mascara had smudged a bit. I reached up to her and gently took her wrist in the gentlest grip I could muster. I thought it would have a sign of comfort, but all she did was grip mine and push my hand off her. I felt the bite of rejection for a moment, but I tried to see it from her point. We don’t really know these people. Don’t show weakness. That is what we live by. Don’t show your weakness.

“Yeah, that be interesting.” I muttered next. “Any way, Suren? Your next it looks like.” I turned my tone teasing to catch his attention. Maya backed me up.

“Bye Suren~! Have fun with the bat.”

“I will, I have many questions for this man bat myself.” He got up from his seat and started to walk through the door.

“Wait Suren! We talked about this, he’s not actually a -” Suren was already gone and Maya stopped herself from wasting her breathe. “Ah, well he will figure it out and if he doesn’t, he’s batman’s problem now.” Maya waved her hand flippantly.

“That would have been a conversation to listen to.” Tim muttered amusedly.

“You have no idea, but that’s why we love him. *sigh* any way, garbage island?” Maya turned the conversation back to our story.

“Oh yeah, so what happened after you two strung up those DASTARDLY evildoers.” Dick joked.

“Hey, that was no laughing matter. They were evil doers. Those people caused so much pain to those poor animals.” Maya rolled her eyes at me in a good jest. I was over playing it and she knew it, but they didn’t. Dick rubbed his neck in apology.

“Sorry didn’t mean it like that.”

“Ignore him. Damian is just fucking with you.”

“It’s true. I am. “

“You gremlin.” Tim leaned over the table to smack me with his book. Dick just pinched my shoulder in retaliation. I laughed at them and their little acts of vengeance. I looked at Maya and saw her staring at me again. A bit too intensely for this case. I wanted to ask her what it was that was bothering her, but we needed to find privacy and we did not have that right now. Later I promised myself.

We fell into soft chatter about how Tim was in the Titans and what they were doing. It sounded rather cool and I was so fascinated that I was brought out to Suren’s cursing and then Bruce’s monotone response as they came to the patio with us. The argument was about his name and how it was misleading. Apparently, Suren had finally come to terms that he wasn’t a bat.

When they got to the patio Bruce looked like he was done with everyone. His hair was a mess and he posture was no longer the pristine plank straight that he seemed to have carried beforehand. he was slouching and looked defeated. The only kind of defeat that Suren created. When Bruce saw all of us sitting and talking though, he became a bit brighter. His posture returning just a bit.

“I see you two have finally got acquainted.” Maya quipped. I chuckled at how Bruce nodded in agreement and then how Suren nudged me to get out of my chair, but I ignored him. Instead focusing on Bruce.

“Yes, and I believe that we can move forward and come up with the proper plan of action.”

“Sounds great Bruce. Should we go down?” Dick was already standing.

“Yeah, lets.” Bruce waved us all back into the house and followed in after us. We got down to the bat cave where Bruce moved me to a table. He put his hand on my shoulder to hold me there. His hand was huge! It held my shoulder and then some of my arm in its light grip. Bruce leaned over to the side and flipped a switch and the table lit up and on it, a map of the world came up. Before I was even asked, I was already making mental notes on where grandfather kept some of his hideouts. Also, taking note of the ones that were decommissioned. I would keep those out of the conversation. In case I would need those in the future.

“Here, feel free to start whenever you see something.” Bruce handed me a plastic pen. I leaned over the table and started to look for the exact coordinates to one in the states. Bruce’s hand stayed on my shoulder for a bit more, before he let go and turned to the others in the room. I heard the chit chat go one, but ignore it for the most part. Focused on the task at hand.

I was almost through the European section of the map when a red light started to go off with an alarm. I stood up and looked around. Bruce’s demeanor changed. His once slouched back became rigid and the air around him turn from somewhat welcoming to cold and unforgiving. This was batman I assumed.

“What’s going on?” I asked as I put the pen down.

“We got a call. We need to go out and deal with some baddies. Just go back to what you were doing. Shouldn’t take long.” Dick ruffled my hair as he ran by me and to the line of lockers in the corner.

“We can go too.” Suren offered.

“No.” Batman mode engaged. Great.

“We know how to handle ourselves.” I said as I crossed my arms in protest of being left out of the chance for us to participate in this sort of activity. We never really planned to go out of our way to beat up the bad guys, but this sounded sort of fun. Going out with batman and robin. That be awesome.

“No.” again he didn’t agree.

“Guys, we can go out later, but right now, we have to deal with this. We don’t know who it is.” Dick said as he slipped on the rest of his suite. I rolled my eyes. Of course, you never really know who you’re going against.

“No, listen here. You can take us and we will agree to stay close and follow your orders or you can leave us here and not even five minutes later; we will be gone. We will go out and deal with it ourselves and who knows. Maybe we won’t come back. Maybe you won’t ever see us again.” Maya was walking to Batman. Nice and slow. Very purposefully and potently. Batman just stood there. Unmoving. “You won’t ever see me. Suren. You won’t ever see Damian again. We can just vanish. poof.” Maya was up on Batman now. Smirking up to him. The tension in batman’s posture was deadly. I was tempted to get between him and Maya to at least maybe stop whatever was going to happen from happening.

“You three stay with me or night wing at all times.” he caved? That worked? “Grab masks and whatever you need and be here in 2 minutes or you will be left behind and it will be your own fault.” and then he was gone. Went to get dressed.

“Alright, you three come on. You need to hurry, he wasn’t kidding about the two minutes.” night wing said as he started to hand us our masks and grappling hooks? Kinda cool, alright. With my mask secured on I waited by the exit where we were told to be at. Batman and the others came out in full gear batman opened the door and had motioned us to go out. He instructed us to stay with night wing while he and robin went on. Nightwing led us through the city and to the apparent meeting point for him and batman. We each took our own pivot points where we had to keep watch. Nightwing had us each keep close to him. He implemented the ‘if I can’t see you, you need to get back to me’ rule. I never heard that one before, but it was ok. I think Maya’s threat not only got to batman, but dick too. When in doubt, Maya knows how to get what she wants.

“What’s going on Batman?” Nightwing's voice filled the air. The comms in our mask’s spoke.

“Suspect in view. Engaging now, be ready to intercept he’s armed.” I walked next to nightwing and he looked down at me.

“Stay close.” he ordered me. I crossed my arms and watched in the distance. I could see the fire fight happening. Smoke and fire spreading across roofs tops and coating the sky in a sick gray from the smoke. A large shadow swung through the building with ease and my first thought was that it was batman, but the body was wrong. And the costume wasn’t one of a bat.

“Batman we see him, who is he?” the other side of the comms were quiet for a minute. “Batman?!” Nightwing asked again.

“It’s the Red hood.”

“Red Hood?” night wing questioned. The red hood? Haven’t heard of that one before. I looked back at the figure and saw batman now following him. Night wing was watching intensely now too.

The Red Hood was now in our perimeter, I was about to make pursuit when night wing held his arm out in front of me. Stopping me from going forward.

“Stay here. He’s too much of a loose cannon. Hang back and find Robin.” I didn’t even get the chance to protest. He was on a hot pursuit. Maya and Suren came to stand beside me.

“Are we going to listen?” Maya asked me. Leaving the decision to me.

“We have to. Promised.” 

Maya shrugged and suren seemed indifferent to the situation. Probably just content that we were outside on our own again. We took an alternate route to where Batman and robin were stationed. Almost there we were bombarded with the sound of more explosions not a mile away. We took the roof to get a better view of what was happening. Batman and nightwing were down, trying to recover from the explosion while we could see the outline of Red Hood escaping. We couldn’t just let him go and technically we are heading back to Robin if we follow him.

“Come on!” I called to Suren and Maya as we ran behind him. We could catch up to the man and that’s when I noticed that his stature was familiar. Brushing it off, I took out a one of the bat-erangs night wing gave me, I threw it in front of the man. Causing him to pause and finally face me. I skidded to a halt, suren and Maya doing the same behind me.

“Ha! He’s already looking for more replacements? That didn’t take long.” The voice was deluded from the helmet he wore.

“No clue what you’re saying. We just saw some psycho throwing bombs around a city.”

“That’s pretty funny considering the guy you work for does the same thing.”

“That’s kinda true I guess, but it’s more of a temp thing for us.” the way this man talked was familiar. So, familiar and though he aimed a gun at my head now, I didn’t feel threatened. Why?

“Ah, you don’t say? So, you don’t have much reason to try and catch me huh?” he waved his gun around. Starting to saunter towards us. Suren and Maya took a step back, but I felt that I needed to take a step forward. To meet him in the small amount of light the moon was offering.

“Can’t really say that. He’s kinda helping us with something, so we can’t really just sit back and let him get his ass handed to him, can we?” that drew a small chuckle from him. He apparently knew that he did indeed win this match against the great bat.

“So where does that leave us? I have a bit of a hunch that he gave you an order that was along the lines of not to go near me.” we were closer now. I could see that he was taller than dick and was wearing a brown leather jacket. His face covered by the helmet was not helping me try and place where I knew him.

“Mmmmm, I’m not going to back down from a fight. “I was taking the last few steps to him. My body filling with adrenaline for a real fight. Not one of those fights where I fought off the lame assassin's my grandfather sent. No. this man was someone who knew how to hold his own against one of the most highly trained man in the world. I needed to be ready.

“Let’s get started then.” and with that, the red hood ran at me. I pulled out one of the blades and used it to counter the blade of the hunting knife he used to attack. I could clearly see his mask and it was one of the stupidest thing I had seen. It was just plain red. Like he found an old motorcycle helmet and painted it red. His blow was harsh and had me staggering from the brute strength.

“Damian?” the helmet spoke again, but this time his voice was softer and had lost the mocking edge it held before. Maya and Suren had jumped to action at that moment and knocked him off me.

“Hold up guys.” I called to them from any more attacks. They paused and looked at me questioning. “What did you say?”

“Damian? What-what are you doing here?” Wait I do know that voice. It was distorted, but the tone was the same.

“Jay? Jason?” no way.

“Oh, my god. Damian!” Jason crashed into me. Knocking the air out of me, and hoisting me off the ground. “Why are you here? You dropped off the map years ago and I didn’t hear anything from you. Where did you go?”

“Everywhere.”

“How did you end up here?” he gently set me down on the ground again. Not letting me go. He kept me in a hug that was so reminiscent of how he used to hold me when he stayed with grandfather and mother.

“That’s a complicated story.”

“Damian, you know him?” Maya asked as she came to stand beside me. Still looking at Jason with little trust.

“Yeah, he’s my big brother.” Jason’s arms flexed around me, tightening his hold on me. I was always proud to say that Jason was my big brother. He was strong, smart and never let anything keep him down. Not even death could stop Jason Todd. for the best part of my young life, he was my world. I wanted to be just like him and spend all my free time with. When he had to leave to complete his training, I was afraid I would never see him again. And when I ran away from grandfather I knew that I would never be able to see him again. At least, not through the league.

“You have a brother?” Suren asked as he stared up at his still masked head.

“Yeah, he does. And I’m still wondering, why in the blue hell would he associate himself with Batman.”

“It wasn’t particularly by choice. We were handcuffed,” suren informed Jason who put his other large hand on his hip.

“Still pulling that shit.” Jason muttered. I laughed at his comment and he just side hugged me. I was so happy to have him near me again. “Well, I suppose I should just take you all with me for now.” I looked up at him.

“What?” I asked confused. He looked down at me and ran a hand through my hair.

“Damian, you can’t stay with batman. Horrible things will happen to you if you stay with him. “

“What do you mean?” it looked like Jason was about to respond, but the sound of pounding feet caught his attention. He swung his body in front of me and faced Batman and Nightwing head on.

“Jason. Let him go.” Batman ordered him, but Jason just pulled his gun out on him. Uh oh. This wasn’t going to end well.

“No Bruce. Not this one.”

“Jason,” I called to him. He didn’t look at me, just pushed me further into his back.

“Damian. Do you know him?” Night Wing asked me. I wasn’t sure if I should answer. I don’t know who’s side I was on anymore. I was batman’s side, but Jason was my brother.

“I’m his big brother.” Jason sneered at them. I looked at Maya and suren and they seemed to be just as confused as what to do. I looked at Batman again and saw that he seemed to try to contain his panic. His mask did a good enough job, but his posture was hunched again and rigid like a feral cat.

“Jason, you need to calm down and let him go.”  
“Not happening, Bruce. You can’t have this one. You’ve lost too many battles and it cost too many lives. I won’t let you gamble with his. Not this time.” Jason threw a frag grenade at the two of them and spun around and grabbed me. He hoisted me up in his arms and ran off the side of the building. Maya and Suren were about to follow, but I lost sight of them once Jason landed and took off into the deeper part of the city. Losing them and Batman in the process.


End file.
